3:00 snapshot #959

[urbpan]

The carpenter bees are crazy the past several days! At the zoo and elsewhere (a friend in NYC posted to facebook about it) HUGE SCARY BEES are scaring the hell out of everyone. I knocked this one out of the air with my hat and then picked it up with my bare hand. Not to show off (well, probably a little to show off) but to demonstrate that these are not dangerous insects. It's kind of hilarious how easily tricked we are, humans--the sapient primates, by an animal with a nervous system made of a few clusters of ganglia. Sure, the bees seem really menacing, darting suddenly at your face, buzzing loudly. But the most aggressive carpenter bees are the males--you can see this one is a male by the white square on his face. Why does that matter? Because male bees can't sting. They don't even have stingers. A male carpenter bee flying at a human's face is like a naked unarmed human charging at a tank--except that the tank is scared of insects and ducks squealing. The females can sting, but they are not very aggressive and rarely do.

Comments

HUGE SCARY BEES

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

We had a lot of those carpenter bees buzzing around here in Georgia about a month ago. They scared my toddler -- he didn't want to go walking in the woods anymore. I wasn't worried, but I'm glad to know that the obvious ones don't sting. I noticed them move aggressively at each other (can you call it a dogfight if the participants are insects?), but they didn't seem to touch each other. When fighting, do they ever make physical contact?

They seem to have gone away now; I guess they're following their favorite temperature up north, or maybe the flowers? The weather here has actually been cooler during the past week than it was a month ago.

Oh -- they liked to hang out on our screened porch, and I took a couple pictures. I'll try to post them later.

Re: HUGE SCARY BEES

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I admit I don't know too much about these creatures (or even if there is someone who does) but I'd guess that the females down your way are busily laying eggs in their tunnels while the males have fulfilled their purpose (dogfighting, then mating) and are dead.